HSC doctor receives $2 million grant for research on pandemic disease

A Lubbock researcher is hoping to treat and eventually find a cure for a disease that’s been around for centuries.

“It’s called schistosomiasis,” said Dr. Afzal Siddiqui, Ph.D., a Grover E. Murray Distinguished Professor at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. “This disease is pandemic in 74 countries — mostly Saharan countries, also China, Japan and Brazil. So currently, 200 million people are infected and 800 more million people are at risk of getting an infection. So it’s a pretty serious disease.”

People become infected by coming in contact with infected water, Siddiqui said in an interview at his office with A-J Media.

The parasitic worm is host-specific and chooses to reside in certain types of freshwater snails, Siddiqui said. It’s passed on through contaminated water that the snails reside in.

Dr. Steven Berk, dean of the School of Medicine and executive vice president and provost of TTUHSC, said the disease is not prevalent in the United States, but several military personnel stationed overseas have historically been infected.

“So what happens is this parasite goes through the skin, it becomes an adult and it starts laying eggs,” Siddiqui said. “It lays so many eggs. They get trapped in the body, they deliver and become enlarged.”

Diarrhea and fatigue are some of the symptoms associated with infection, he said.

At the end of March, Siddiqui received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for $2,849,281 to develop a vaccination to fight the parasite.

This is the first grant from the Gates Foundation to be awarded to the TTUHSC, Berk said.

“That’s such a great organization to work with because they’re looking at such global objectives of improving world health and improving the health of children,” Berk said.

A vaccination has already been developed, Siddiqui said.

“We now have a vaccine, which we have tested in several animal models,” Siddiqui said.

The funds awarded by the Gates Foundation combined with funds provided by the National Institute of Health will help refine the vaccine and get it ready for application to the Food and Drug Administration for clinical trials, he said.

“Up until now, most of the vaccine development that he’s done has come from the NIH,” Berk said.” He’s had very good funding from the NIH to develop this program. He’ll continue to have NIH funds, but being a partner with the Gates Foundation is such a real step forward. So we’re very proud of him.”

Schistosomiasis is the second most devastating parasitic disease worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control’s website.

It can survive for up to two decades within a host while reproducing infected larvae, Siddiqui said.

Calcified schistosome eggs were detected in 20th dynasty Egyptian mummies, Siddiqui said in a news release from the TTUHSC.

Siddiqui has been researching the subject for about 20 years, he said.

“This will be a vaccine for the world, and it’s being developed by a researcher at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas,” said Kent Hance, Tech chancellor, in the news release.

Siddiqui said he hopes to have the vaccine ready for application for FDA-approved clinical trials within the next three to five years.

“We’re just really excited that Dr. Saddiqui would have the funds to continue this research,” Berk said.